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Press Release

Naval Academy Midshipman Receives Gates Foundation Scholarship

Posted on: February 11, 2014 08:00 EST

Press Release #: #010-14

ANNAPOLIS, Md. – U.S. Naval Academy Midshipman 1st Class (senior) James Mackovjak, of Silverdale, Wash., was recently selected as a 2014 Gates Cambridge Scholar. Mackovjak is one of 40 U.S. students awarded the Gates Cambridge Scholarship this year.

The Gates Cambridge Scholarship program was established in 2000 and is funded by a $210 million donation to the University of Cambridge by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It enables academically outstanding students from outside the United Kingdom who have a strong interest in social leadership and responsibility to pursue graduate study at Cambridge.

Mackovjak, 21, is a graduate of Central Kitsap High School and is currently a systems engineering honors major, a member of the academy’s triathlon team, and president of the Naval Academy’s chapters of the American Nuclear Society Chapter and the Tau Beta Pi Honor Society.

Mackovjak plans to earn a Master of Philosophy in energy technologies at the University of Cambridge, after which he will continue his training as a Navy pilot.

Founded in 1845, the U.S. Naval Academy today is a prestigious four-year service academy that prepares midshipmen morally, mentally and physically to be professional officers in the naval service. More than 4,400 men and women representing every state in the U.S. and several foreign countries make up the student body, known as the Brigade of Midshipmen. U.S. News and World Reports has recognized the Naval Academy as a top five undergraduate engineering school and a top 20 best liberal arts college. Midshipmen learn from military and civilian instructors and participate in intercollegiate varsity sports and extracurricular activities. They also study subjects like leadership, ethics, small arms, drill, seamanship and navigation, tactics, naval engineering and weapons, and military law. Upon graduation, midshipmen earn a Bachelor of Science degree in a choice of 25 different subject majors and go on to serve at least five years of exciting and rewarding service as commissioned officers in the U.S. Navy or U.S. Marine Corps.